


Wolves

by jennajuicebox



Series: Bones [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-05 07:24:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennajuicebox/pseuds/jennajuicebox
Summary: I'd never be brave enough to say it to her face but I say it over and over in my head. As if I could be big enough to help ebb the pain, the heat that lives beneath her skin like a separate entity. A cold and callous monster that cares nothing for the body hosting it.A series of one shots from Where the World Ends from Peeta's point of view.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shannon17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shannon17/gifts).



> This is a special gift to my friend Shannon, who always believed in Where the World Ends, even when I didn't. A series of one shots from Peeta's point of view. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.

Haymitch hadn't meant to tell me. It had come out like thunder, the bile words that had broken the silence that enveloped the storm that is Katniss Everdeen. He had told me everything she couldn't. The poverty that she was surrounded by. The constant struggle of survive or starve. It does something to a person, it can take someone as beautiful and clearly caring like she is and turns them to a cold, hard stone.

 

And he told me about the breaking point, the great cataclysm that was Katniss's sisters death.

 

I feel what she felt.

 

In waves and spitting fits I feel the cold morning air that steals the breath from your chest. I feel the panic in my lungs and the nausea she must have felt as she broke through the crowd to see her sisters broken body on the pavement, missing a shoe.

 

“There is something you should know, Peeta-” Haymitch says, watching the rain. My head falls into my hands because this feels so wrong coming in bursts from his gruff voice. Katniss should be telling me but we both know that she will never let it go, she will never be able to speak the truth on her own. “Her sister was her only reason, the only reason she ever had for being.”

 

“Prim was her world,”

 

It is so unbelievably toxic.

 

“The man that killed her was a junkie that lived at the hotel,”

 

“The way Katniss talks you'd have thought she killed her sister.” The words tumble from somewhere inside of my chest before I can stop them.

 

Haymitch looks at me, gray as a grave.

 

“I think she will always believe that she was responsible.” He sighs, a world weary sound. “She'll never accept that there wasn't anything she could do to stop it.”

 

“How on earth could she have stopped it?” I ask.

 

“Something like this, you always think you could have done something better, been more clever, faster, stronger-” His voice fades off and for a moment. “She'll be on that street corner forever trying to think her sister alive again.”

 

The rain hits the pavement, the loudest noise I've ever heard.

 

“I've been trying so hard to help her,” I whisper to myself, my fingers reaching out, trying to catch raindrops like when I was a child.

 

“Waste of time, kid,” Haymitch says, voice rasping. “Can't bring anyone back from anywhere.”

 

Everything about her makes sense now.

 

The chains.

 

The ring around her neck.

 

Her skeleton walk.

 

The carefully constructed dance with death. The way she slips toward it with her entire being only to slink away in terror at the last minute.

 

The overdose.

 

The unprotected sex.

 

Its all a symptom of sadness. Not the normal kind. The blanket kind that leaves you blind and deaf and dumb to anything else. It isn't pretty or clean and not like the movies at all. Nothing about it is simple or kind and no amount of wishing it away will do any good.

 

It's all she can see.

 

And when we finally step back inside it's clear she knows what we've been up to.

 

She looks right into the center of me. Those mercury eyes look right through me.

 

“No,” She whispers.

 

I feel it rip through me, through the layers of skin and tissue straight through to the clean, white bone. It shatters any allusion of stillness inside of me.

 

She's a gray eyed storm.

 

My mother was right.

 

She's going to break my heart.

 

But not in the way she'd expect.

 

“Katniss,” It's all I can say. As if her name is the end-all, an answer in and of itself. My hand reaches out to pet her, useless as my mother always told me I was.

 

Haymitch steps inside, his boots heavy against the linoleum, the door clicks shut audibility in the silence we are all three living in.

 

It hangs for a moment between us.

 

Our breathing like the ticking of a clock.

 

A time bomb.

 

“How dare you?” Katniss spits. Venom she is. Broken. Lost. Scared.

 

Her chin quivers but she holds strong, she won't cry over this betrayal.

 

“Boy deserved to know,” Haymitch says gruffly.

 

She explodes.

 

She lunges, her nails barely missing Haymitch's cheek. I've grabbed her around her middle and heft her backward. Her braid hits me in the face, sharp as a whip. A chair clatters to the floor as I drag her back toward the door. She needs the cold air to bring her back. She's practically red with rage. It has been bubbling inside of her for months, maybe years.

 

I drop her on the porch, pulling the door tightly closed behind us. For a moment there is only silence. Her gaze laced with betrayal. The second my eyes meet hers her eyes hit the ground and she starts to pace like a cat in a cage

 

“How?” Her voice is feral, a wild thing in between us. Betrayal lacing that one word. On cue she starts yanking hard on the tip of her braid.

 

She's hurting herself.

 

I yank her hand away.

 

“Don't touch me!” She rages, her body curling in on itself, back bone curved under the weight of her grief.

 

I would do anything to not know.

 

To take this back.

 

“Listen, Katniss-” A look that could level whole civilizations is cast my way. It cuts my air off from my chest. Whatever I was about to say is lost to me, because I am lost, lost inside of her pain.

 

I can't imagine what she is going through right now.

 

I'm not sure I want to.

 

“What did he tell you?”

 

“What he felt he had to.”

 

She deflates all at once. All of her breathe leaving her in a rush.

 

“Prim-” I say as if I am working up to a big, long speech. I know my words don't matter, won't matter. I'll never get through to her. She'll always be on that street corner. “It wasn't your fault.”

 

It's useless.

 

She's so far gone.

 

“How do you know?” She spits and seethes. “You weren't there, you didn't see it!”

 

She's right.

 

But I know Katniss would never intentionally hurt her sister, or me, or anyone else she cares about. That's why I let her rage and fury and grief beat against me, because I know. I've always known. She cares about me. I can see it when her eyes snap toward me when she thinks I am not looking. The way she lectures me about Cato. The way she seeks me out.

 

She needs someone to help bare the brunt of her anger until it dies completely.

 

I can be that someone.

 

She isn't unsavable yet.

 

But she is so close to the line. I'm scared. I'm scared I'll lose her.

 

“Katniss-” I need her to know. I'm here with her. I can help her.

 

“I don't need you,” It feels like a stab in my chest. Only its a different voice on a different day. “I never did.”

 

“I know,” My voice is broken. My eyes hit the ground and when I peek up through my eyelashes I see her chewing on her lip. She's sorry and lost. Her eyes flit this way and that, welling up with tears.

 

“I don't need you to save me.” She whispers in a scary monotone.

 

She's never needed me to save her. But she needs the strength to save herself. I have plenty of that, enough to share.

 

“I know.” I say willing her to look into my eyes and see it.

 

She lunges for me, so quickly it knocks me off balance and I fall down the steps, landing on my ass on the wet pavement. My hands sing. For a moment all I can do is blink.

 

This is it.

 

She stumbles angrily down the stairs and lands right in front of me as I stand up. Calm and patient. I can't let her rattle me.

 

Too bad that's all she does.

 

She pounds her fists against my chest. Hard. Years of anger and powerlessness rage against me, and I let it.

 

“I don't need you!” She shouts. “I don't want you!” Rain drips from her braid, down her face, sticks to her clothes. It takes me longer to realize she has started to cry.

 

I can be the rock in the storm.

 

Her chin is trembling furiously. The tears come fast and hot and all I want to do is envelope her in a hug, she'd never allow it, but the thought invades my brain instantly.

 

Finally, I stop her. Catching her fist between my hands and holding it against my chest. She stops and blinks, her eyes going glassy.

 

The tears slow to almost nothing.

 

Her chest heaves and her head cocks to the side. Her eyes slide shut and the trembling starts. I need to say something to her. Anything to bring her back from where she has gone.

 

And I bungle it like the idiot my mother always told me I was.

 

“He is killing you,” I whisper, because that is what I am thinking. “He killed your sister and now he's killing you.”

 

My mother used to tell me that just because something is the truth it doesn't mean its okay to say it out loud. She's never been more right.

 

She jerks her hand out of mine.

 

I instantly miss her.

 

“Get away from me,” The hurt in her voice is unmistakable, thick and tangible, I could reach out and touch it.

 

I step backward to give her space. She sucks in air like its going to disappear.

 

I can't even imagine how alone she must feel.

 

“If that is what you want,” I know it is. I've betrayed her in the worst way possible.

 

I have no choice now.

 

I have to walk away.

 

“It is,” She says, low and cold. I take another step back. “I want you gone.” Her voice leaves no room for an argument.

 

“Fine,” I say, something breaking in my chest.

 

I turn and walk away, every step I take echoing in my ears.

 

She doesn't call for me. She doesn't chase after me. She is Katniss Everdeen after all. A hurricane in her own right. She'd never beg.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My mother might be right, Cato might be right. Maybe I am just a thief who will never amount to anything but a career of petty crimes and bar fights but for just one moment she looked at me like I was someone of worth to her. If they had seen it, their high minded principles would have washed away. They would have melted like candle wax, just as I have, because they never would of wished such beauty away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a little bit that I wrote for WtWE that never ended up being included. I thought it would be nice to still include somehow so I reworked it from Peeta's POV and added it. I hope you like it. Its set sometime in Chapter 12 of Where the World Ends.

Katniss and I share one thing in common.

 

Staying alive.

 

As I drive I try not to watch her looking out the window with wonder in her eyes. The closer we get to our destination the more antsy she has become, her fingers twisting in the hem of the sweater she refuses to give back to me. The way her legs come up to hide her body. The way she can contort herself until she is a small box of a person. She has that gift, being able to make herself as small as possible.

 

“Where are we going?” She asks, chewing on her thumb nail as she peeks upward, trying to see the stars through the window.

 

“It's a surprise,” I say softly, grinning at the dashboard as she grumbles.

 

I do it just to annoy her.

 

Her eyes roll back but she gives me a small half smile.

 

She's beautiful.

 

She'd never agree with me of course, so I don't tell her.

 

We pull up to an open meadow, all dry grass and dandelions dotting the ground. I kill the engine and it takes awhile for my ancient truck to calm down. The whirl of the mechanics cooling down and our own breathing, ragged and dancing between us. Katniss pokes her head out of her open window, looking around.

 

“What is this place?” She asks.

 

“An open field,” I snap back at her. She raises her eyebrows mechanically, one quirking above the other. Her lip ring bobs as she bites her lip.

 

“You brought me out here to kill me didn't you?” Every once in a while she does that, she lets me see that dark sense of humor that only comes with heartache. Sometimes you have to laugh at the darkness encompassing you or you'd cry and never ever stop.

 

“Yeah, you caught me,” I say dryly. “I guess my plan was foiled.” I fiddle with my keys hanging out of the ignition, just to give myself something to do.

 

She jumps headlong into the darkness, leaving me behind.

 

“Holy-”

 

I smile, knowing what she's seen.

 

I follow after her, leaving my door hanging open.

 

Her eyes are on the sky.

 

You can see all the stars for miles around.

 

I watch Katniss slowly walking away from me her body being swallowed by the swaying grass, her eyes staring emptily upward.

 

“You know, My sister and I liked to watch the stars,” she says, her voice far off, almost impossible to hear. I don't say anything, my voice stuck somewhere between my chest and mouth.

 

“Come on back here,” I finally spit out. She turns to look at me with wide eyes, her fingers coming up to brush the hair away from her face. Those tiny tendrils being tossed by the wind.

 

“This isn't the surprise?”

 

“No, now quit asking questions,” I say with a smirk.

 

She walks forward, her boots cutting through the mud.

 

I'm yanking a basket from the back, producing a blanket, soft and red and crocheted by my grandmother. I lay it down on the grass, careful to keep it on the grass while Katniss watches with wide, curious eyes.

 

“This is a little forward of you don't you think,” She shifts her weight a little. “Huh, Son?”

 

I smile at this, I can't help myself.

 

I live for these little stolen moments that she gives me. A small view of who she was- really was- before.

 

I start to pull food from the basket, cheese and bread and grapes, wine I filched from Finnick's store on top of his fridge. Katniss watches, her bottom lip sucked into her mouth as I finally flop down on the blanket, patting the space I've left for her next to me.

 

She inches forward like a stray dog and sits gingerly, being extra careful not to touch me. I hold out the bread and she takes it with timid fingers.

 

I watch her as she sinks her teeth into the soft flesh of the bread and practically moans in delight. I try my hardest to stifle my smile but it creeps up on my face anyway. I make a game of it, offering her chunks of bread and cheese, grapes, just to watch her delight in eating them.

 

She hides her face behind her hair and it's alright, I don't mind.

 

I watch the stars instead.

 

_Tell me where it hurts, Sweetheart._

 

I'd never be brave enough to say it to her face but I say it over and over in my head. As if I could be big enough to help ebb the pain, the heat that lives beneath her skin like a separate entity. A cold and callous monster that cares nothing for the body hosting it.

 

I want to ask her if she's eating enough.

 

If the nightmares have magnified and grown or if they swell and recede like the ocean against the coastline.

 

I want to ask her what it felt like the day the world ended.

 

But grief is a searing fire, threatening to burn through our very being. Katniss, for all of her own fire is fragile so she shut the door on it, turning to her anger instead.

 

Grief gives us no choice, it rules us. But her anger allows her to feel powerful and her vices allow her to feel nothing. She dove into her anger like an addict trying to kill themselves with their drug, and to most it has worked. However, at times like these I can still see her beneath the mammoth, ever-burning fire. Desperate and wild, begging for air.

 

I tug on her braid ever-so-gently, trying to gain her attention.

 

“This place is beautiful,” Her voice is liquid smoke. I try to focus on her words but there is this freckle on her chin that is begging my finger to brush against it, and I do it.

 

“What are you after, Peeta Mellark?” She asks, teasing, playful, but I am already hopelessly entranced by her nose bumping mine and my lips brush against hers softly.

 

“Oh,” Her breath fans against my cheek, warm and smelling like wine.

 

“Is that too forward for you?” I ask, my voice cracking slightly. “huh, Son?”

 

“Fuck off,” She says against my cheek, but she's smiling. I inch backward to look at her but she doesn't give me the chance. She clasps her willowy arms around her legs and presses her chin against her knees. She looks up at the stars and not at me but that's okay because she is smiling.

 

_Tell me where it hurts, sweetheart_

 

She watches the stars and it gives me the chance to study her.

 

 

I'm helpless when it comes to her.

 

I can't fix the trauma, I can't wish her sister back to life. I can't do much of anything beyond sit here in the quiet and hold her hand. Is it enough?

 

“Hey, I have an idea,” She says suddenly, dragging me up by my hand and pulling me toward an old decayed oak tree at the edge of the meadow. Her feet cutting through the long grass, the smile still plastered to her lips, though the moment is long over.

 

She pulls a pocket knife from where she keeps it tucked in her boot.

 

I am left to watch her back as works on carving away the bark. Finally, she steps away from the tree, smiling cheekily. Her initials are neatly carved into the trunk.

 

“Now you,” The words come out in gasps of silvery air and I shake my head. She cocks her head and peeks up at me through her eyelashes. She doesn't give up easily. She shoves and prods until I shakily drive the knife into the bark, soft with rain.

 

When I finally step back to inspect my work I turn to find her looking at me. I study her for a long time. Large eyes framed by delicate cheekbones. Her lips quirked up in a small smile. She reaches her fingers out to touch the soft inner bark where the knife just was. Her eyes flit to me and then away.

 

The knife slips from my fingers.

 

My mother might be right, Cato might be right. Maybe I am just a thief who will never amount to anything but a career of petty crimes and bar fights but for just one moment she looked at me like I was someone of worth to her. If they had seen it, their high minded principles would have washed away. They would have melted like candle wax, just as I have, because they never would of wished such beauty away. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mother?
> 
>  
> 
> Can you hear me?

Mother?

 

Can you hear me?

 

Am I finally enough?

 

The silence after violence is always eerie. I'm alone now, doing my best to staunch the flow of blood from my stomach. Red. Its gotten everywhere. All I can think of for a moment is how my mother would scold me when I was a child for making a mess.

 

Mother?

 

Does everyone call out for there mother when they are dying? Desperate for that last bit of hope from the first person that held them close and told them the ultimate lie.  _You're safe with me. I'll protect you._ You can't protect anyone in this world. Its cruel and unyielding and indifferent. It doesn't care if you are young, good, kind, creative. It takes and takes and takes. Mother Earth cares nothing for us.

 

The blood comes quickly now.

 

I could cry out, scream, rage and it would do no good. There is no one to help me now. And I have no energy left.

 

The cool tiles of the floor have grown warm and sticky beneath me and I know its close to the end. The world has taken on a shimmering quality, empty and void of emotion.

 

That quiet is endless.

 

This is going to be hard on Katniss.

 

Katniss.

 

I left her there, sleeping in my bed. The early morning light casting shadows on her face. She doesn't scowl so much when she sleeps. She looked ethereal, otherworldly, with her hair spilled across my pillowcase. Her knees brought up to her chest, arms curled close to her body. Even in her sleep she looks small and without the chains and boots she looks like she could be a child.

 

Its easy to forget she is a child.

 

I couldn't bring myself to wake her.

 

Besides, she'd try to stop me. And I'd let her because I am powerless beneath her quicksilver gaze. Because she makes me feel like I can be better. She makes me feel like those things my mother said about me were wrong.

 

For a moment I feel her head rest against my shoulder. I feel the silk of her hair on my neck and the heavy weight of her against my side. I feel her breath fan over my skin. It isn't real. It's a ghost.

 

Not real.

 

She's not here.

 

This doesn't hurt as much as I would imagine it would. The wound in my stomach is open and sticky and my shirt covers most of the gore. Its easy to pretend it isn't happening. Something in me knows this is shock, my body protecting itself. Trying to keep me awake. Alive.

 

A natural reflex. But its just staving off the inevitable.

 

I am going to die here.

 

Darkness is descending.

 

I feel in encroaching at the edges of my vision, from my temples and beyond. My blurred vision has stars in it. I can feel my pulse slowing. My heart is tired. So tired. I should shut my eyes. My breath is a ragged dance in my chest. Let come whatever may.

 

I hope I don't break her.

 

I hope she knows that none of this was her fault.

 

I hope she finds someone else. Someone who will look in her eyes and see the whole galaxies within them. I hope for this more than anything.

 

She deserves happiness.

 

“Peeta!”

 

A cry in an endless quiet. Far off in my memory.

 

I feel my lips twitch up into a weak smile.

 

This isn't real.

 

But let her come.

 

Because I am dying and my mind wants this so bad. So we will play pretend that this is real.

 

Real.

 

“Peeta!”

 

Something is knocked into. A slow creak of a door. My name again.

 

Is this real?

 

“Peeta?” the voice is quiet now. She's scared. I need to open my mouth. Say something to comfort the voice. But what?

 

Silence.

 

No.

 

Come back.

 

I try to sit up but a sharp stabbing pain prevents me from moving upward. I could crawl to the door but the blackness behind my eyelids swells heavily. I slump back against the bathtub behind me and resign myself to my fate.

 

Then the shadow of footsteps sound.

 

“Peeta?”

 

My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I don't have any words. She'll be here in a breath. Looking at the blood that splatters the walls, the mirror, the tile floor. She'll see it and she shouldn't. The horror will come back. She'll disappear.

 

Don't open the door.

 

Don't look.

 

Turn around and leave me here.

 

The door creaks open slowly.

 

_“We're going to get caught.”_

 

_Her eyes rocket skyward._

 

_“Oh shut up,” She laughs._

 

_I look up at the fence in front of us uncertainly. Its at least six feet of chain link. She tosses her bag up and over and then she's climbing. Its like she has done it a million times before and who knows? Maybe she has. She reaches the top and leaps down, landing lithely on her feet._

 

_“Come on then, Al Capone.” She says with a smirk._

 

_“Oh,” I say looking up at the sky. “Oh, you think I'm going to climb that?”_

 

_“You better.”_

 

_“Come on, you're going to miss it.”_

 

_And with that she jogs off into the night._

 

_Well, shit._

 

_I shimmy up and over and land on my ass in the mud. I hear the slight shift of her feet then laughter._

 

_“Sure, you laugh now.”_

 

_“Come on,”_

 

_She's come back to me._

 

_For a moment I just look at her. Breathless from laughter. She holds her hand out to me. I take it and let her pull me up, relishing the warmth I find._

 

_Everyday I wake up and find she isn't dead is nothing short of a miracle._

 

_We reach a door of a garage rusted and bolted shut. She waits patiently as I jimmy the lock. In moments the door slides open._

 

_“Where are we?” I ask._

 

_“Fish Cannery,” She says just as the smell hits me. It smells like salt and fish and dust. Its been a long while since anyone has been in here._

 

_“And why, pray tell, are we at a fish cannery?”_

 

_“You'll see.” She says._

 

_She takes my hand again and I am content to let her drag me past the long dead machinery and to a old ladder in what used to be a break room. She looks up at the trap door that leads upward._

 

_“Are we going up there?” I ask and when she looks up at me there is a sparkle in her eye._

 

_“Don't freak out on me now, Mellark.” She says with a smile._

 

_“I'm not freaking out.” I say slowly. But I feel unease crawling through my veins._

 

_“Uh-huh, sure.” She practically shoves me toward the ladder._

 

_I have no choice but to climb._

 

Don't look, sweetheart.

 

Her eyes rove over the room. Wide and dark and sad.

 

“Katniss?”

 

This must be a horrible dream.

 

Something that happened in another life.

 

I wish I could turn back time, reverse to when she was sleeping in my arms, just a few hours ago. It feels so long ago.

 

She lets out a small noise from the back of her throat.

 

_The roof of the cannery is wide and flat. The city glitters below and beyond that is the black vastness of the sea._

 

_Its beautiful._

 

_“How did you find this place?” I ask and she just shrugs her shoulders._

 

_“I like old buildings.” She says simply._

 

_“I like you,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. She falls quiet, her fingers prying at her braid. The silence is heavy._

 

_“Why?” She asks, her eyes flitting to me, then away._

 

_I shrug my shoulders. She leans against a broken down air conditioner. I follow, leaning so our shoulders brush._

 

_“You have no idea, do you?”_

 

_She bites her lip._

 

_“What?” Her voice is sharp._

 

_“The effect you have on people.”_

 

_“I don't want to effect anyone.”_

 

_I laugh._

 

Her eyes flit everywhere but me. I see her curl in on herself. Arms curled against her chest, fingers claw into her neck. She looks wild and small at the same time if that is even possible. Its the darkness in her that brings me back. Her nostrils flare.

 

“Katniss?” My voice sounds so far away.

 

Her eyes still stare at a point on the wall. A place where my blood is splattered.

 

“Katniss,” I beg. “Look at me.”

 

She looks at me. It slices into me.

 

Her breathing is sharp and quick and I can hear it over the blood pounding in my skull.

 

“Peeta?” Her voice is weak.

 

 

 

_“I used to go looking for abandoned buildings with Gale.” She says. Then she looks like she has let a secret fly. She looks contrite, scared even. We're sitting cross legged across from each other, sharing a soda and some left overs she filched from her house._

 

_“Whose Gale?” I ask, there is a creeping suspicion inside of me that tells me I don't want to know._

 

_She bites her lip._

 

_Then she goes blank, like she usually does._

 

_“Just someone I knew, from before.”_

 

_“Oh,” Its all I can think to say._

 

_Though a thousand questions are racing through my head. She rests her back against the air conditioner. She looks worried that I am going to run. I scoot closer to her. She doesn't say anything else, just looks out at the lights far below us. We are the world small up here. It feels like no one can touch us._

 

“Katniss!” It takes everything in me to yell her name, but she's gone somewhere else. I need to bring her back. “Hey, hey,” I coo.“Its just a little blood,” I try to smile.  _“_ Good Girl.” I say when her eyes snap into focus. “Its just a little blood, there is plenty left, I promise.”

 

 

Finnick is yelling something into his phone. He looks over at me for an instant and our eyes lock. He shakes his head, just slightly.

 

Yeah Finnick, I fucked up.

 

_“Did you love him?” My voice is sudden and Katniss looks startled. She whirls her head around to look at me as I fidget nervously._

 

_She makes me so fucking nervous._

 

_“What?” Her voice cuts._

 

_“That Gale guy? Did you love him?”_

 

_She looks away. She doesn't say anything._

 

_The quiet is long and empty. She doesn't look at me. That's why its a surprise._

 

_She sets her head gently on my shoulder._

 

_It takes me a moment to realize this is her answer._

 

_My fingers come up and brush the hair away from her face. Her nose presses against my neck and I feel the warmth of her breath against my skin. I lean against her, my head dips down and my lips press against her hair._

 

_She doesn't look at me but she smiles._

 

_The sky bleeds pink and orange and we watch as the city below comes to life._

 

_We don't speak again._

 

_We don't need to._

 

_Soon we are forced to pack up and leave. We'll return to the world. But for now, we are here. Its enough._

 


End file.
